A New Record
It was time to go.
The move would provide a fresh start in the quaint, middle-of-nowhere out in Butler County. The nearest city, Cedar Falls, was half an hour away and a far cry from being considered a booming metropolis. It was time for the city boy, Avery Barnes, to escape to the country. The big cities had way too many temptations, too many old demons, too much for him to handle. At that point in his life, moving would be the best thing to do.
Molly Schnaebel grew up in Butler County. She was a beautiful, well-liked woman in her mid-twenties. The little farm community that she called home near the edge of New Hartford, Iowa was the perfect place to raise a family.
Molly’s husband worked for the railroad. Late one night, when she was nearing the end of her third trimester with their daughter, she received a telephone call. Her husband, Ray Schnaebel, had an accident at work. By sunrise, she had become a widow.
Avery encountered his next-door neighbor a few times and he could tell that she did not like him. She was a single mother and, at first, he figured she was just stressed. He knew that infants were a handful. On several occasions he would be sitting on his porch when she drove up to her house and he’d offer to help carry groceries or get the door for her. He constantly offered to help around the house, run errands, and even to babysit sweet, little Julia a few times, but Molly would just give him a strange look and hurry up her front steps.
That wasn’t the only time he got strange looks. Eventually, everyone in town began pointing and whispering as he walked past.
When Ray died, the town rallied around Molly. She and Julia were brought to every church function, farmer’s market, and charity 5K that the town put together. They embraced the young widow. They listened to her. They looked out for her. They helped her raise Baby Julia. They were a tight-knit town of good folks that would do anything for those girls. And that’s why they snubbed Avery Barnes.
After months of cold shoulders, whispers, and odd glances, Avery became a shut-in and began collecting new hobbies. He desperately needed distraction. He wanted to be anonymous, not vilified. Alone in his old farmhouse, he started researching various arts and crafts in order to keep his idle hands busy.
Avery was the type of guy that would start up a project and quit halfway through. Anytime he became marginally good at one thing, he moved on to something else - a byproduct of perpetual loneliness. He couldn’t share his work with anybody. No one was there to say, ‘Wow, that looks great,” or “How did you do that?”
His house became a graveyard of nearly finished model planes and cars, half-empty jars of acrylic paint, paintbrushes, canvases, and used how-to books on just about everything. Each morning he would kick his way through various projects as he crossed the living room to the kitchen.
Feeling the need for fresh air, Avery tried on an outdoor hobby: Gardening. He had a large lot behind his house and plenty of room to grow whatever he wanted. The county held a big Fall Festival every year that included the crowning of a “Pumpkin King,” an honor bestowed upon the man that produced the largest pumpkin of the season. Avery Barnes vowed to be that man. He was determined to pass that familiar point of mediocrity. He was determined to show them all up with a new record.
His moment was so close, he could taste it. Weeks of obsessive tending and gentle turning ensured him a Pumpkin King coronation the following weekend. His chest puffed with impending pride as he fantasized about the envious stares of the townspeople, especially Molly, who always looked through him, not at him.
A cold wind blew as he admired his prize specimen under a darkening, autumn sky. As bright, painted leaves rained on his crop, he instinctively turned his head toward the sound of a crying baby. Near the back of his field, under the old Maple, Molly Schnaebel was shielding a bundle from the wind and staring. Avery waved, “hello,” but she quickly turned and waved her free hand off to her left – as if she was signaling someone out of sight. Naively, he ignored the odd gesture and returned his focus to the patch. He smiled as he proudly looked down at his massive, prize-worthy pumpkin.
Thunder clapped loudly nearby, a distinct whiz sound came from behind, and his knees instantly weakened. Julia cried in the distance as Avery fell to the ground and watched the red splatter hit his last, unfinished project.
Everyone in town knew. Molly had told all of them. She said he seemed overly eager to “help” and the way he looked at Julia made her uneasy. She had a sneaking suspicion that plugging that city boy’s name into the appropriate online search field would generate a glaring red square right over his house on the website map. She was right.
Maybe it happened when he was a kid. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as the horrible things she imagined while rocking Julia to sleep night after night. Either way, Avery’s name was on the list. Molly had already lost a husband and she was not going to let anything happen to her daughter. The townspeople knew what to do. Molly belonged there and he didn’t. They were a tight-knit group that took care of their own. He wasn’t welcome and he’d ignored the many hints he’d been given.
The following weekend, after the men of the town loaded it onto a pickup truck and delivered it to the large, commercial scale at the Fall Festival, Butler County crowned its first ever, “Pumpkin Queen.” Molly Schnaebel’s pumpkin, the largest in county history, weighed over seven hundred pounds.
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